The lack of legal citation in an order is nothing new in state court practice. What stuck me as unusual is that the Judge would have written an order at all. If state court practice in Georgia is anything like it is here, the motion would have been heard in open court, the judge would have issued a verbal tongue lashing, the parties would have walked outside and hand-written a vanilla order with no findings of fact or legal citation, and the judge would have signed it without reading it.

As for a bank denying modification, I have handled a hand full of foreclosure cases on the defense side, and have spoken to lawyers who handle dozens (if not hundreds) of these cases. The consensus seems to be that there are two standard answers when the defendant asks for a modification: 1) “No because you make too much money and never should have fallen behind,” and 2) “No because you don’t make enough money and you can’t afford any reasonable modification.”